Answers
by thandie-16
Summary: Weakness wasn't something she had ever seen on him, not even when he had thought she was going to keep him as her own personal light switch. She respected him for that, maybe even admired him, not that he'd ever hear those words leaving her mouth.


Title: Answers

Genre: Romance/ Character Study/ a little bit of friendship-ish

Characters: John/Larrin

Disclaimer: Still don't own them. If you want to donate money to me eventually owning them though, I'd be quite happy.

Summary: Weakness wasn't something she had ever seen on him, not even when he had thought she was going to keep him as her own personal light switch. She respected him for that, maybe even admired him, not that he'd ever hear those words leaving her mouth.

Her head was killing her, but then again the migraine of the century could probably cause that. She couldn't understand what the hell her scientists were thinking. They, in conjunction with a whole contingent of Lantean scientists, had almost blown the whole place sky high cause, if she understood what they had told her "They had a really brilliant idea… at the time." She rolled her eyes at the thought. It was like whenever the two groups of scientists got together, instead of working better (read more sanely) their stupid and insane ideas seemed to feed off one another, until it entered some strange world of its own where it was a magnetic field that only attracted more strange, idiotic ideas while simultaneously hypnotizing all in the vicinity, making them believe that it **must** be tried and obviously without asking permission.

Larrin sighed and dropped her head heavily unto her desk.

"Day that good huh?" She barely managed to stifle a very unleaderly like squeak at his sudden appearance.

John Sheppard was standing, well more like leaning, at the entrance to her office, wearing what she'd heard the Lanteans refer to as 'Earth Clothes'. A light blue button up shirt and pants made of a thick dark blue material. Looking as gorgeous as he ever did, even with all the black and blue marks.

"Well what can I say, at least it was better than yours."

He smiled as he pushed off the wall and fully entered her office, not seeming to do much to suppress the little cringe he made at the movement. Her statement was true though, excessively so. The day after they had slept together John and his team had gone on a mission and been ambushed by a people calling themselves the Fergoti. A society that treasured the ancients in a way that she was sure couldn't be all too healthy. They'd heard about John from a couple of outcast Genii spies. From what she'd heard the team had fought hard but in the end they had lost John, and Teyla had had a serious wound to her thigh. It had taken three days to get him back, in fact she was almost sure he had been back for a maximum of four hours, and from what she knew of Beckett, there was no way he had been released from the infirmary.

Sheppard smiled as he dropped onto the edge of her desk. "What are you talking about. Getting kidnapped, held hostage and having the crap beat out of me is how I like to spend my free time. You should know right?"

She rolled her eyes. "In the name of the ancestors will you let that go? It's not my fault I can kick your ass."

His face registered shock at her statement for just a second before he laughed. An honest to God true laugh, that had his eyes twinkling in a way she had never seen on him before. It warmed her in a way that more than anything else made her sick and defensive. There was no way she should be having warm, fuzzy feelings towards this man or his laugh. That thought was enough to bring back her migraine.

"What do you want Sheppard?" It was said more aggressively than need be and he noticed, but it was necessary. She needed him to go away and... and well just **be** elsewhere, so long as elsewhere was far away from her.

He didn't answer her for a long while, just sat there fiddling with various knick knacks on her desk in that strange little fidgety way he had about him that was never quite comfortable, but nowhere near awkward. Then he sighed, a long heavy thing that made her tired just hearing it.

"Nothing really, nothing at all." He stood to leave and then grasped violently at his hip, she was out of the chair and beside him before she fully registered his movements.

"What is it?" Her question was asked absently as her hands went for his shirt, but he batted her away and shrugged easily.

"Nothing, just aggravated an old injury." And there it was. Her nice friend Mr. Tone. It was basically screaming liar. Yet still, here he was, obviously in pain, refusing help for whatever his strange, incomprehensible reasons were and hobbling (ok he was walking mostly fine on his own but she was on a rant here) away.

"John, sit before you drop and I call Beckett on your ass." He definately froze at that and she smiled. She hadn't understood the fear that all the personnel on the base had for this short, pudgy, really unintimidating man until she had come done with some Earth virus two weeks into her stay here. Now she got it.

She watched him walk back into her office without offering to help, which in all likelihood would probably spook him again more than anything else. She held back what must have been her umpteenth sigh for the evening. First she was chasing him, now she didn't want him leave. Larrin shook her head, it was only for the benefit of their treaty, she told herself. No one would be happy with the military commander of Atlantis collapsing just outside her office.

Once he was seated she approached him again and went for his shirt. Judging from the stiffness of his posture he didn't like this but she really wasn't asking him his permission at this point. Larrin raised the shirt slightly and froze at what she saw. His scar, the one that had been on her mind since that night was bruised and swollen in sections, like someone had decided to hit this spot in particular, more than likely hoping for exactly what was happening. Not only causing new pains, but encouraging old ones too.

"How bad?"

John shrugged lightly again. "I've had worse."

It was the sound of his voice that captured her attention. It was rough and soft and more than a little bit open. When she looked up at him is when it hit her. She wasn't the only one this attraction thing was screwing with.

"How'd you get it." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Where are your parents Larrin?" His eyes not only held her in place where she was, kneeling in front of him while he sat, but also compelled her to speak.

"My father is on another ship but my mother is dead." She answered.

"How?"

"Wraith." It was the only word necessary to answer his question.

"Both my parents are dead. My father was an army man too. Every year we'd go to have dinner as a family, his way of apologizing or something for all the moving around I guess." She didn't speak, didn't dare breathe. There was a different feeling to this altogether. She wasn't asking for anything, he was offering.

"It had been raining all day. Just pouring constantly for hours when we'd left. As we were heading down the road, a truck skidded out of its lane and hit us. The car... the car basically crumpled around us. Killed my dad instantly, knocked my mother out cold but me... it pinned me. A piece of metal from the body of the car tore into me right here." John described, tracing the line of the scar without looking.

"It trapped me there for hours. They got my parents out, rushed my mom to the hospital, but they couldn't see any way to get me out without killing me and I remember. I remember it all cause I was awake for it. I remember the smell of my own blood, the shrieks of metal as they tried to cut me out, the pain, how utterly cold the rain was. All of it." He said closing his eyes at the end and shuddering quietly.

She didn't say anything in response, what could she say anyway? Besides, she wasn't sure what he was looking for out of this conversation.

"I, I don't know why I'm telling you this. I don't think I want to."

She understood that feeling more than anything else in the world at that moment. "I don't think I want to hear it either." Which wasn't exactly a lie, hearing it meant something, although she wasn't sure what, even though she had spent a lot of time wondering about it.

He looked away then, but didn't make any attempt at motion. She really didn't understand this man. Why was he telling her this, coming to her of all people when he had a whole city looking after him. She studied his profile as he examined the rest of her office. Even in sharing something that most would consider a weakness he still looked like he was ready to fight a war. Weakness wasn't something she had ever seen on him, not even when he had thought she was going to keep him as her own personal light switch. She respected him for that, maybe even admired him, not that he'd ever hear those words leaving her mouth.

She stood then, walked over and closed the door to her office.

"When I was three-" she began. "I started a fire on the ship on which we lived because I was playing with a thermal integrator that I had been told to stay away from." She finished the sentence by peeling off her shirt and pointing to the small patch of rough skin on the back of her shoulder.

"At eight I started a fight with a boy from another world and he stabbed me." She said pointing to the scar on her stomach. "Ofcourse he didn't get off without a scratch either."

"At eleven I fell from a tree I was climbing on one of our few world stops and broke my arm badly." She pointed out the rather large scar that spun the width of her left arm.

"When I was fifteen, I ran off with a Sarane boy on some random planet. There's an animal there called the Jinga that is somewhat similar to your dogs." Larrin continued unbuttoning her pants. "The thing bit me, left a scar right here." She placed her foot on his lap and pointed out the scar on the back of her right calf.

"When I was twenty three-" She said stripping off the final few layers of her clothing, "-I was on one of our ships as it crashed. 34 of our people died, I, I got this." She pointed at a minuscule little scar low on her hip. "That day I supposedly saved 14 all by my lonesome. Not my sister though. It's more than likely the reason I'm in charge of these ships."

Larrin stopped then and stared at him as he stared at her.

"You should leave." She said.

"I should." He agreed.

She straddled him then, delicately avoiding his injuries and began undressing him. This was it and she knew it. She would be leaving Atlantis behind soon and hopefully, with a little bit of distance, this attachment as well.

He made no motion to stop her but didn't help her either. "Why?"

She blinked at him a moment then kissed him. "I know what it's like to need to forget."


End file.
